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Last Friday
night, at the conclusion of our district ministers Christmas
gathering, our new District Superintendent, Dale Miller, reminded
us to wish each of you a "happy new year" on Sunday.
This Sunday. "Unless," he added, "the members
of your congregation already think you are crazy and will
take your greeting as confirmation that their worst suspicions
are true."
Everybody
measures time differently. There are plenty of calendars that
shape our lives ... school calendars ... national calendars
... fiscal calendars ... planting and harvesting calendars
... even boating and fishing calendars. Ours (in the church)
organizes itself around Jesus. Which is why a "new year"
is properly launched when we begin tidying up our lives in
anticipation of his appearing.
We call
this season Advent. Initially, it was just what I suggested
... a tidying up period ... a penitential period ... a period
of getting ready by getting clean (meaning lots of confessing,
repenting, renewing, that sort of thing). The predominant
theory as to why we light a pink candle on the third Sunday
of Advent (instead of a purple one) is that no Christian can
stomach four long weeks of penitence without a break. So the
third Sunday represents a joyful respite in the middle of
a sober and somber month. That way, having laughed and smiled
for a moment, we can get back to the brooding business of
rigorous self-inventory and self-polishing. Ironically, children
seem closer to this original spirit of Advent than the rest
of us, given that even the most obnoxious of them sense that
December is not a month for screwing up, so much as a month
for cleaning up. The rest of us have largely forgotten the
"penitence" part in favor of the "partying"
part. But we continue to light the candles, even though there
isn't one of us in a hundred who can remember why the third
one is pink.
Perhaps
you have noticed that this year of ours ... this new year
of ours ... begins in the dark. Two Saturdays ago (when I
was in Boston for the Yale-Harvard game), I wasn't sure they
were going to finish it while they could still see to play
it ... even though it started before 1:00 in the afternoon.
That's because Boston is on the eastern end of the time zone
while we are on the western end. Which means that afternoon
tea time is nighttime on the eastern seaboard. At least in
December.
Not that
Michigan is much better. Or much brighter. Thankfully, in
Advent we light more and more candles as the season goes on.
But we also suffer more and more darkness as the season goes
on. But, then, people of faith have always known that it sometimes
gets darker before it gets light ... sometimes gets worse
before it gets better ... and sometimes seems as if night
will never end before we get to morning. Which always surprises
people outside the church, who figure that God should work
on their timetable, not His. But it does not surprise those
of us inside the church, who know that we do not always keep
the faith because we see the light ... but until we see the
light.
Yes, we
know that tomorrow morning will come ... that Christmas morning
will come ... that Easter morning will come ... and that our
own great gettin' up morning will come. But we also know that
there will be a whole lot of tossing and turning, sheep counting
and floor pacing, along with the outward push of laboring
and the downward pull of dying, before morning comes. Light
will not be rushed. Which is why the Bible says that we hope
for what we do not see. For if we have light, we have sight.
And if we have sight, who needs hope? Or faith? Or belief,
for that matter? But we don't always have light. Nor do we
always have sight.
In our
text for today, Jesus is talking with Peter, James, Andrew
and John ... those four, no more ... about how the mighty
walls of Jerusalem (in whose shadow they were presently standing)
would begin falling, stone upon stone. What's more, he said
that on that day the sun will be smudged, the moon will be
snuffed, and the stars will tumble from their constellations
like so many cheap pearls breaking loose from a necklace whose
string has snapped. "Then you will see," he said,
"the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and
glory."
They,
of course, wanted to know when. I mean, wouldn't you? So,
in one breath, he told them: "Before this generation
passes away, you will see these things." But with the
next breath he seemingly took it all back when he said: "But
of that day ... or that hour ... no one knows. Not the angels.
Not me. Only the Father." Ironically, while there are
several questions in the New Testament Jesus wouldn't answer,
this is the only question he said he couldn't answer. "When
will it all crash and burn, Jesus?" To which he said:
"Don't know. Don't pretend to know. But you will see
it in your generation."
Which
they did, of course ... see things "crash and burn"
in their generation, I mean. Thirty years later, the walls
of the Temple came tumbling down, stone upon stone. Jerusalem
in ruins. People in prison. Families torn apart by conflicting
loyalties. Street corner messiahs ... each one louder than
the next ... each one nuttier than the next ... each one claiming
exclusive access to the mind of God.
So Mark,
who wrote his gospel around 70 A.D. (when all these things
were going on, don't you see), recalled these words of Jesus
as if to say: "Look, Jesus said it was going to crash
and burn. Jesus said that the light was going to go out of
your life and the stars were going to fall from your sky.
He said you'd see it. Didn't say when. Didn't know when. Just
that you'd see it."
Which
we have. Over and over again. In every generation. In this
generation. Which of you, sitting within the sound of my voice,
hasn't watched it all crash and burn ... hasn't seen the lights
go out ... hasn't watched the stars fall from the sky (or
at least one special star fall from the sky)? Jesus doesn't
know when it's going to happen. Nobody knows when it's going
to happen. Only that it will happen ... in every generation
... to pretty much everybody in that generation. Am I talking
about the end of the earth? Well, it sometimes feels like
it, doesn't it? Things crash and burn. Lights fall from the
sky. Terrible things happen. And we hear ourselves saying:
"That's it. No more. All over. Can't go on."
So what
do you do then? Well, you look again, (says Jesus). Past the
crashing. Past the burning. Past the rubbish, ruin and rubble.
Past the fallen stars rolling like pearls in whatever direction
the floor of your life happens to be tilting. Past the smudged-over
sun and the snuffed-out moon. Past the turbulence that is,
at that very moment, shaking your airplane or your attitude
... shaking your faith or your life ... even shaking the earth
on which you stand or the heavens toward which you gaze. Look
past all that, Jesus said. Look through all that, Jesus said.
And you will see, amidst the darkness, that the Son of Man
is coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
Is he
talking about the Second Coming? Of course he is. But do not
be confused. The Second Coming need not necessarily mean "final
coming" so much as it means "your coming" ...
as in the sense of his "coming to you." Which is
why Jesus said: "I don't know when it will happen. Nobody
knows. Angels don't know. Mortals don't know. Even messiahs
don't know. But this much I do know. People in your generation
will see it. Because people in your generation will need to
see it ... the Second Coming, I mean." Will Jesus come
again when the world ends ... or when your world ends? Yes!
When Jesus
died, his disciples believed their world had ended. When Jerusalem
fell (and Nero began slamming doors in the collective faces
of some very fragile "Jesus people"), the church
thought its world had ended. But whenever it was that it happened
for you, I can't quite rightly say. Except I believe it has.
Or will. Your world come to an end, I mean.
So what
do you do? Well, you watch and you wait. Fearfully? I think
not. Jesus did not talk about the Son of Man appearing in
the clouds to frighten his friends, but to comfort them. And
I think he would say the same to us. What the text says is
that if darkness will not stop him, it need not stop us either.
So we
have a choice this Advent. We can go to bed and lie there
with pillows over our heads ... having first shoved all the
heavy furniture against the door, even that cumbersome and
nearly-impossible-to-move bureau that we inherited from Uncle
Frank. Or we can put a parka over our PJs and make our way
to the porch at midnight ... candle in hand ... the better
to scan the skies for the one whose appearing we cannot ...
yet ... see.
*
* * * *
Note:
I am indebted to Barbara Brown Taylor for her suggestion of
this rather unusual text for the first Sunday in Advent. Look
for her treatment of the theme in one of her earlier books
entitled God's Medicine.
At the
conclusion of the sermon, I paused to light a candle and scanned
the skies (or, at least, the upper regions of the sanctuary).
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